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Small Gifts Sent to Ease U.S. Debt

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — In a fifth-floor cubicle in a federal office building here is a wire-frame basket labeled “Gifts.”

Every few days, an envelope arrives, and a Treasury Department employee opens it. Inside, usually, is a check, often with a letter explaining why the sender wants to do his or her part to help reduce the federal debt of the United States.

A very small part, to be sure.

Last year, the Bureau of the Public Debt recorded $3.1 million in gifts, more than has been usual since the government began accepting such donations in 1961. At that rate, it would take millions of years to retire the $13.4 trillion the country owes its creditors, foreign and domestic.

While concerns about the economy, especially taxes and spending, have dominated the midterm election, it is hard to find officials who have made voluntary contributions to improve the nation’s balance sheet.

Since the program began, Americans have given about $80 million. Recent donors include a class of Alabama sixth graders who raised $324.50 by selling cookies; a Maryland man who learned of the program in an evening accounting class; and Margaret E. Taylor, 98, of Findlay, Ohio, who died in 2006 and bequeathed $1.1 million to the cause.

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John W. Krupansky of New York has given $225 to ease the debt.Credit
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times

“I get mixed reactions,” said John W. Krupansky, 56, a software developer in Midtown Manhattan who started reading about economics during the dot-com crash a decade ago, and has blogged about his tax deductible gifts, nine so far, of $25 each. “Some people are annoyed; they think the right thing to do is complain about the debt, not actually do something about it. Other people are amused that anyone would waste their time to do such a thing.”

This fiscal year, through July, the bureau has logged $2.7 million, about 9 percent less than at the same point last year.

Donors can send in a check or money order, or give online using a credit or debit card. The government does not advertise the program, and officials avoid drawing attention to it. The program tends to come up, they said, only when journalists ask about it.

Van Zeck, the commissioner of the bureau, oversees sales of Treasury securities and savings bonds; accounts for the debt to the penny; and ensures that the debt does not exceed the statutory limit, which Congress raised in February to $14.3 trillion.

Asked why the program was little known, he said soliciting donations might “seem straightforward and benign” but could rub taxpayers the wrong way.

“Whether to advocate that people do more financially to help the government than they already do — that’s not the kind of question that’s mine to answer,” he said.

The program was the idea of Representative Charles E. Bennett, a Florida Democrat who served 44 years in the House. Mr. Bennett, who died in 2003 at age 92, also wrote the law requiring that currency bear the motto “In God We Trust.”

He was known for public spiritedness. A World War II veteran, he returned his military disability and Social Security checks to the government. When he retired, he gave most of his campaign funds to charity and the Treasury.

While the White House believed that “such authority almost certainly already exists,” the legislation was “intended to encourage such gifts” and to create a way to accept them, according to a 1961 memorandum, now in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

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But although the memorandum confirms that the gifts are counted toward debt reduction, the amount of giving has no real impact on government spending and borrowing.

“There does not appear to be any intention to put control of the actual level of the debt in private hands, although those who make such gifts may be under the impression that they are exercising such control,” Phillip S. Hughes, an assistant budget director, wrote in advising President Kennedy to sign the bill.

For some people, that makes the program toothless.

“It’s just good money after bad,” said Representative Jeff Flake, who with Senator John McCain, a fellow Arizona Republican, has introduced legislation that would let taxpayers designate up to 10 percent of their federal income tax for debt reduction and require Congress to come up with an equal amount in spending cuts.

Mr. Flake said he had only a “vague recollection” of the gifts program, but that he did not support it. “I don’t think taxpayers should be on the hook more,” he said. “We already pay enough.”

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Credit
The New York Times

But contributors have argued that shared sacrifice is what is most needed to revive the economy.

Teri Gisi, a teacher at Dalraida Elementary School in Montgomery, Ala., who coordinated the bake sale that sixth graders held last year after learning about the debt in class, said the recession was on their minds.

“We’ve had some students who’ve had to move in with their grandparents, students who’ve lost their homes to foreclosure,” she said. “Some of them didn’t even have new shoes for the start of school.”

Despite hardships, the students made debt reduction their cause. “Three hundred dollars to them is a large amount,” Ms. Gisi said. Even when a math teacher explained how large the debt was — “he showed them all the zeros,” she said — “they didn’t get discouraged.”

Treasury officials said they were prohibited from identifying donors. But in Parkersburg, a few employees shared stories.

A widow turned over the estate of her late husband, who had made regular gifts to express patriotism. Naturalized citizens, thankful for the opportunities afforded immigrants, have contributed. A man sent in a trove of rare coins, which were auctioned for far more than their face value.

Many taxpayers have simply signed over and mailed in their rebate checks, including members of Amish and Mennonite communities who have explained that their religious beliefs do not permit them to accept government assistance.

The bureau tries to make donors feel appreciated. Anyone who mails a check receives a thank-you form letter from Sherlyn West, a manager here.

“Your contribution will help ensure that we do not burden future generations with a huge debt,” it says.

A version of this article appears in print on September 24, 2010, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Small Gifts Sent to Ease U.S. Debt. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe